June 20, 2024 | Barry Weisleder
Defenders of free speech gathered outside 53 Division Toronto police station on June 20 to call for an end to cop harassment of pro-Palestinian people. Charged with assault, a member of the Toronto-based Labour May Day Committee was compelled to submit to finger-printing for a second time. Police have still not disclosed the detailed allegations against the accused, a socialist labour activist, arising from an event that occurred weeks earlier. Rally participants chanted “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free!”, “An injury to one, is an injury to all!” and “Drop the Charges Now!” It is critical to involve unions, labour councils, NDP district associations, and other mass workers’ organizations in this defense campaign.
The following is the text on which the Socialist Action speech to the rally was based.
“Socialist Action is a revolutionary working class party. It is a partisan of Palestinian liberation. SA is a partisan of Palestinian Resistance to Occupation. When a people are occupied, all forms of resistance are justified. Socialist Action advocates an end to the Zionist Apartheid state.
As a socialist and a Jew, I deplore racism and I stand with Jewish Voices Against the Occupation. Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. To the contrary, Zionism fosters anti-Semitism around the world. It is beyond ironic that a state that claims to be a “Jewish state” is governed by Neo-fascist gangsters guilty of genocide.
The Canadian colonial-settler state, self-admittedly guilty of genocide against Indigenous peoples, is aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes through investments and arms sales on a large scale.
The police are an enforcement arm of the capitalist state. Cops are strikebreakers, tenant evicters, racial profilers, and assaulters of women and Queer people. Lately, they have targeted pro-Palestinian people more than usual. Led by an expanded Hate Crimes Unit, operating under the name “Project Resolute”, police have conducted pre-dawn raids, snatched people on the streets, tried to turn arrested individuals into informants, showed up at university lectures, and did years of surveillance of activist movements. The Hate Crimes Unit expanded from 6 to 32 officers last Fall, and likely more since then. The police harass and foment hatred against Palestinians and their allies, at the behest of pro-Zionist organizations and Canada’s ruling elite.
One such target is a member of the Labour May Day Committee. The person is falsely accused of assault. It is, for example, a democratic right to speak out at a fund-raiser for Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, or against any capitalist politician with Palestinian blood on their hands. We need more activists with the courage to denounce complicity with genocide.
So, we are united to demand: “Drop the Charges.” “An injury to one is an injury to all.” “Abolish the Hate Crimes Unit.” “Disarm, De-fund, Disband the Police.”
